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Inspector Morse And Music - Some Observations

One of the great attractions of the television adaptations of Colin Dexter’s novels, personally speaking, has always been the quality and range of classical music excerpts used in the programmes. We know that Chief Inspector Morse is a great Wagnerian, and enjoys Bach, Schubert and frequently Mozart (With the possible exception of the ‘Magic Flute’ after events as portrayed in MASO!). Whilst he may not have the highest opinion of Vivaldi - as he remarked to Adele Cecil (NEIG) - the programme makers have never shied away from using the work of the ‘Red Headed Priest’ in the series. In fact, despite the impression that, on the whole Morse is quite distrustful of foreigners, it is surprising that virtually no English Composers’ music has been featured! With the publication of the final novel (REMO), it is obviously too late for our hero to expand his repertoire of music, but I feel that it is surprising, and unfair, to have not have acquainted him with some of the world’s finest music.

In particular I find it astonishing that Morse, who spends so much of his time alone with his thoughts, and spends a considerable time in various stages of depression and degrees of melancholy, has never turned to the music of Sir Edward Elgar (1857 - 1934) for comfort and inspiration. Since I am also a member of the Elgar society, you may well accuse me of being biased and, to a degree, I am - but, I have know and loved Elgar’s music since my schooldays, and have only been a member of the Elgar Society for a few years. My greatest influences were my late paternal grandparents, who lived next door to Worcester Cathedral, where Sir Edward played in the ‘Three Choirs Festivals’, and then composed and conducted many of his greatest works in, and for, Worcester - and the fact that I have lived in the view of the Malvern Hills all of my life, which inspired him to such great achievements.

So what would I recommend to Morse, the music lover as an introduction to Elgar? Given that Morse was a man with ‘no religion’, one might think that the ‘Dream of Gerontius’, the ‘Apostles’ and the ‘Kingdom’, the three great oratorios, would be out of Morse’s compass; However there is some wonderful orchestral music in these works (try the composer’s 1927 live recording of the prelude to the ‘Dream of Gerontius’ at the Royal Albert Hall, or the music representing the character of Judas in the ‘Apostles’ for example). The figure of Gerontius himself should provide some inspiration, particularly if one consults Cardinal Newman’s original poem which Elgar set so movingly to music and whose centenary was marked in October 2000.

I think that Elgar wrote some of his greatest and most moving music when he was past the age of sixty - when, like Morse, he was at his intellectual peak. He may not have completed much orchestral music of note in the last decade of his life, but the three pieces of chamber music written between 1917 - 1919 (violin sonata in E minor, ‘Op. 82’, string quartet in E minor, ‘Op. 83’, and piano quartet in A minor, ‘Op. 8’) are all just the kinds of music that would make ideal ‘thinking music’ for Morse. One must also mention that violin concerto in B minor, ‘Op. 61’ (1910), and the cello concerto in E minor, ‘Op. 85’ (1919), which were inspired by two of the many women who came into Elgar’s life - another similarity with the great detective. A recent recording of one of Elgar’s unfinished works, the piano concerto - slow movement, ‘Op. 90’ (with Margaret Fingerhut and the Munich SO under Douglas Bostock), would be an ideal accompaniment to one of his (sadly all too infrequent) meetings with an attractive female admirer.

I have to say that, while Elgar was a most enthusiastic follower of Wagner and attended as many of his performances as he could, he never neglected other contemporary (or earlier) composers. A glance at his record collection list (see Jerold Northrops Moore’s ‘Elgar on Record’ OUP, 1974, pp. 233-6) shows that he followed the music of Bach, Beethoven, Bellini, Berlioz, Bizet, Brahms, Chopin, Handel, Mozart, Schumann and many others. If other members have more suggestions regarding Morse’s own taste in music, I would be most interested to read about them. For me it shall remain a (minor) disappointment that a great English mind was never allowed to hear the music that flowed from a great English heart.
 

Article supplied by Ian J. Morgan